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Sunday, March 27, 2011

Some Sad and Good News.. all 3/26

Today we have good news and sad news. One of the most wonderful opportunities in my long and jaded political career was to work with Gerry Ferraro, first on her Vice Presidential campaign and then on the delegation for the Women's conference in Beijing. As you can imagine, neither was relaxing. In between these two monumental events, we got to be friends. She was always available for questions. Always gave good guidance. Always laughed at my jokes. Stressful situations often bring out the worst in people. This was not the case with Gerry. She was spectacular under pressure and always stayed true to what she believed, regardless of controversy, or criticism. It took great courage for her to do all the things she did, including dealing with this rare cancer. Whether you agreed with her or not, it was impossible not to admire, respect and for so many of us, love her. I will treasure all the memories I have of the time we spent together and the laughter and tears we shared. Rest in peace my friend.

Today David and I will celebrate 32 years together. (We met the night of the signing of the Camp David Peace Accords at the White House: Carter, Begin & Sadat at their best. For us, it was a blind date. ) A picture from the Camp David signing...3/26/79...at the time, we didn't have a clue who the other was...It probably will surprise you to know that we have spent half our lives connected in some way, most of it married. So when we awakened this morning he said, what are we going to do to celebrate? Since we are in N.C with dear friends, I thought we should do something different. "Here's what I think we should do. We've spent so many good years together, it seems to me we should just get separated. Divorce is out of the question, but I love you so much, I don't want to watch you get old.” (Our getting old has not been pretty.)

“Wow,” he said, “what a novel idea. The leave them laughing approach to life.”

"No one else we know has done it,” I said. "And you know how we like to be the trendsetters amongst the people we know."

So on this, our 32nd anniversary, I would like to share this decision. In true Burnett fashion, we were incapable of making it a decision. I guess that means it at least another 32 years before we have the discussion again. Were just sayin …. Iris